Being
a Skeptic and a prudent person who also cares about their fellow[wo]man in
need, it compels me to share my thoughts on charities (for what it's worth)..."Giving
of ourselves is the most important thing we can do in our lives"Perhaps
a more efficient way of looking at giving is by having your time/money set
aside for local micro causes as they arise (someone needs immediate
assistance when their home burns down, someone who can't meet medical costs,
someone who loses their employment/livelihood and needs temporary assistance,
the homeless, etc) - you can help someone on your own be it help for your
own family, a friend, a neighbor, or a stranger - directly and right now in
their time of need where a donation of your time/money may help someone face to
face. You'll know how the dollars are being used, you'll know who is
being helped, and by being personally involved you can solve an immediate
problem. There are no overhead costs as in major charities where a lot of
the monies go to admin cost, operating costs, CEO pay, overpaid management,
marketing, buildings, even FRAUD. Remember…charities
are businesses and they have agendas and have causes that are unclear at
best. I reckon what I'm sharing is - if you want to put your wallet where
your heart is in order to help alleviate suffering, don't let your emotions get
the better of you and blindly donate. Sometimes the way we choose to dole
out our funds betrays our true motives. Know thyself. We may be
more interested in feeling good than doing good. In
my intimate experience having been on the "inside" of organized
charity (both secular and church charities), I have been trying to
craft a definitive argument that defines most as the crooks I believe they
are. It is my opinion that they stand in the way and block the democratic
path to providing for society's needs as a whole ahead of private gain.
Charities are gatekeeper middlemen profiteers who take their cut at the greater
expense of the cause. They serve the capitalist, private profit
class. The modern organized charity business has become another
exploitive trick of trickledown economics in this country, and in my opinion,
what the people need is not charity. What is good for the
"riffraff" hyperbole and what they
would want if they knew it - is JUSTICE - not charity. In a just, that is
to say a democratic society, charity is - would be, superfluous. Yes, as
for the list of charities to choose from, I admit (excuse my cynicism)
that they are all upright, honorable, respectable, even admirable - as
capitalist enterprises, where the best con artists are those who rake in the
most profits. And
remember…charities often target symptoms, not causes. The collective
action of a government addressing the underlying causes of social problems
supported by our uniform taxation can bring social justice by directing our
actions at the root causes of social problems. As citizens, our active
and direct influence on our local and national government is extremely
important to reform our entitlement system towards a better management of truly
needed services that we would like to see implemented and wisely distributed
among all for the common good. Let's get involved in solidarity to make
lasting reform and change in our justice and education policies on society as a
whole.Good
excerpts from http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/04/10-reasons-why-i-would-never-donate-to-a-major-charity-or-how-to-be-a-superhero-part-2/
---Smart
Allocators of Capital are on the case. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are a 1000x
better than I am at researching charitable cases, allocating their capital,
investing correctly the leftover funds, etc. My $100 (or $1000, or $10,000,
whatever) is not going to make a dent in their $100 billion. Let them handle
the big problems. With the local micro-charity idea, I personally can make a
great difference to people who Bill Gates will never even hear about.There
are better ways to cure cancer. First off, it seems like I’m picking on the
American Cancer Society. But this is the number one killer in the United States
and one of the biggest killers out there so I might as well focus on it a
little bit. And it's not just cancer. What I’m about to say applies to
Alzheimers, Heart Disease, Cancer, and every major disease. Companies cure
cancer. Scientists with new ideas of drugs team up with businessmen, start
little companies, get approximately $200mm to $1bb in funding, then develop
their drugs, put the drugs through a bunch of different phrases through the
FDA, and then finally if the drugs are good, they get bought by a bigger
company who is better at selling the drug. That’s how cancer gets cured. That’s
how every disease in the world finds a cure now. So the best way to cure a
major disease at least is to put money into a biotech mutual fund which funds
small biotech companies. These companies are at the frontier of major biotech research.
The other thing is to lobby the government to reduce the FDA’s stringent
standards on drugs. A drug costs up to $200 million or more to get through the
FDA. The only way companies can recoup that cost is by charging enormous
amounts for drugs. This is part of the reason why healthcare and insurance are
so expensive. Drugs for prostate cancer, for instance, cost up to $93,000 a
month because the billion or so it cost to get through the Federal Drug
Administration.]A
couple of articles on the ethics of charitable giving… very interesting to
consider and shows how philanthropy ~

Q U O T E S“I
don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It
goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the
other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.” Eduardo
Galeano"Overcoming
poverty is not a gesture of charity, it is an act of justice." Nelson
Mandela"A
society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity."
Ralph Nader"We
have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the
display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more
inclined to be generous than to grant social justice. His generous
impulse freezes within him if his power is challenged or his generosities are
accepted without suitable humility." Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man
and Immoral Society, 1932 “Essential
services ought to be provided to our fellow-citizens by government
[taxation/wise implementation], not by philanthropic organizations.” Neil
Levy"It
really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in
an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live
together because of the interrelated structure of reality... This is the way
our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going
to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated
structure of all reality." Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."Nothing
is finer than the open hand and the generous heart that's prompt free and
unselfish giving. But modern social science knows, also, that ill directed
charity is often directly responsible for encouragement of pauperism and
mendicancy. The best service we can do for the needy and the unfortunate is to
help them in such manner that their self respect, their ability to help
themselves, shall not be injured but augmented. Nobody is necessarily out
merely because he is down. But, being down, nobody gets up again without honest
effort of his own. The best help that benevolence and philanthropy can give is
that which induces everybody to help himself." From President
Coolidge's telephone remarks to the Federation of Jewish Philanthropic
Societies of New York City, Oct. 26, 1924.If
democratic reform stalls, those working in the integral parts of revolutionary
coalitions find themselves increasingly marginalized because of the reemergence
of authoritarian practices and elites. Only the renewed inclusion of
popular mobilization of the people and employing sophisticated protest
strategies that authorities cannot stifle will empower a civil society to
restore the democratization process for implementing change in the current
system.

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